Visit to Disneyland after a decade!

Disneyland Adventure - be3n

I was once an annual passholder to Disneyland. Before that, my family made regular visits.  From the stroller to my own legs, Disneyland is present in a large proportion of my memories and memorabilia.  It has changed and yet it has stayed the same.  Here are some of the things i noticed on my last visit.

Disneyland Adventure - Single RiderI started in California Adventure alone.  Out of habit, i started early, i was meeting friends later.  It turns out that being alone has its advantages.  The single rider program is an awesome way to zip through many of the lines.  In truth, Disneyland has made many innovations to waiting in line since the original FastPass.

California Adventure’s changes went mostly unnoticed by me.  I am less familiar with the park and as a much newer park there is less to remove. I did noticed the Pixar rebranding and enjoyed some of the additions to the coaster.  The new lighting elements were very impressive.  The World of Color show was something I’d never seen.  I remember watching the building of it, but my pass expired before the debut and life distracted me for a while.  That was going to change.

it was in California Adventure where i saw some of the famous Disneyland cats.  that was exciting. (helps to show up early). Disney was celebrating the Chinese year of the mouse.  Funny, I’ve always heard it referred to as the year of the rat, but that doesn’t match up with branding.


Disneyland Adventure - View From the TopDisneyland Adventure - Chinese New Year (year of the mouse)Disneyland Adventure - Disneyland CatsDisneyland Adventure - Monster Inc PayphoneDisneyland Adventure - be3n on Guardians of the Galaxy RideDisneyland Adventure - be3n on Incredicoaster
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AOL Instant Messenger Shutting Down!

AOL’s Long running messaging service will end on December 15th. Though it’s true that i rarely use it these days and that I actually lost my original account years ago… I have fond memories of this communications protocol.  I continue to communicate with people though AIM. Apple had strong links to it at the launch of iChatAV. #nostalgia  Well, AOL broke the news with a tweet.  ironic?

AIM sunset tweet: All Good things come to an end. On Dec 15, we'll bid farewell to AIM. Thank you to all our users!

End of an era! cydia.be3n.com shuttered after 7+ years!

In truth, I haven’t touched it in years.  I haven’t even touched cydia recently. Sadly, all this work would only be useful for someone with an original or 3g iPhone. Apple certainly doesn’t support those devices anymore.  Does anyone still use them?  Unfortunately, my ISP insists that I remove the content.  After 7 years of hosting it, they realized it violates TOS.  I should check the logs.  I wonder if it will even be missed.  People say the internet never forgets.  Sometimes it is quite the opposite. For nostalgias sake, I left the instructions site up: http://cydia.be3n.com/ (at least that does’t violate Dreamhost TOS).  For the record, much of my work continued support well into iOS 4.

cydia.be3n.com site

. . . Maybe it will rise again on S3?

My first domain is mine again! muhahaha!

Bill The Cat campaignBack in 1997, I registered my first domain benforpresident.org.  It was a silly site that I would do almost nothing with.  I had grand plans for a genuine run for 2016.  With technology on my side, how could I fail?  Well, I missed a registration payment and it was snatched from me.  Oddly, the content remained the same in the hands of it’s new owner.  Nothing was added, nothing was changed. (apart from some tracking javascript).  Yesterday on a whim, I checked it’s availability and reacquired it.  I don’t know exactly what I am going to do with it, but for now, I have set the clock back to 1997.  typos and all.  got ideas?

Throwback Thursday – be3n’s boyhood home!

be3n boyhood room 4upI found more pictures of my old bedroom recently.  Below, I cleared out my bed to install a pull out sofa (seen in next frame).  It turned my high school room into quite the hangout.  Also on display were some art and other decorations from that era.  If you look closely, you can find Pez, impressionists paintings, comics, Magic packs, and a Sun optical mouse/mousepad.  I wonder what others will find.  My room’s walls were quite the collage.  I’ve added more pictures including this 4up from my Nickelodeon Photo Blaster.  Can you find Audio/Video tapes next to the original Nintendo?  enjoy.

be3n boyhood roombe3n boyhood bedroom packing for Defcon
In that last picture, my room is trashed while i pack for the Defcon Hacker conference in Las Vegas.